The other night we kicked the fridge and a can of beer fell out.  Beer is one of my favorite cooking ingredients.  It is a must if you are in the mood for hearty pub fare. There are many beer recipes available on the internet.  BeerCook.com is an interesting site with many recipes, or you can also search for other sites.   

 Here some easy recipes that use beer that you can search for and get a multitude of choices.

Beer and Brats

Beer batter Fish fry

Beer can chicken or beer can chicken

When I BBQ or smoke meats, I almost always dump a half can or so of beer into the BBQ sauce.  I also use it in green chilli.  There is a local Mexican restaurant here that serves pork that has been roasted with beer. It is quite tasty.

On this particular evening we did not have much to work with. We had a keilbasa that we bought that we knew had to get cooked soon, or it was going to get tossed. So this was going to be our base ingredient.  When I spotted the can of beer hiding on the back shelf, beer 'n brats immediately came to mind.  In this case, since we did not have real brats, it was going to be quite a variation.  So here is how I made my "strange brew" dish:

1 lb polish sausage or kielbasa (sliced or cut into small peices)
2 or 3 potatoes
1/2 can of beer
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 chopped onion
1/2 stick of chopped celery
sprig thyme
sprig sage

Instructions: Put it all into a pot and let it simmer for an hour or more.  That's it! I would have liked to add some cabbage but we did not have any on hand, but I bet it would make a nice addition.

The dish came out pretty good.  The broth, being mostly made up of beer was very hearty. I did not feel the need to add any salt at all because of the flavor added by the sage and thyme.  These two herbs can be especially strong, so use them sparingly. In addition, a lot of salt flavor leached out of the keilbasa during cooking.  I think we will try it again sometime, except we will also add some cabbage.  The broth was pretty strong and a bit like a brine. If you do not like the broth, then you can strain it off, much like you would when you make corned beef and cabbage.